User:RUSTY JORDAN/sandbox

Writing or Reading Facilitative E-tools

Instructional technology (ITs) can support ELLs and develop the students' literacy skills. Literacy is commonly defined as "reading and writing at a level that is suitable for communication, or at a level that allows one to understand and communicate ideas in a literate society to participate in it." Literacy requires mastering an academic language and being proficient in academic discourses. According to Meltzer (Erben et al., 2009), a student is literate if he or she "can use reading, writing, speaking, listening and thinking to learn what they want or need to learn, and can communicate or demonstrate this learning to others who need or want to know." Literacy is something dynamic, multidimensional, interrelated, and dialogic in nature. Literacy is the focus of national initiatives to improve K–12 children's academic achievement. This is seen as a critical factor in raising educational mobility, school graduation levels, and country jobs. Nevertheless, society's more vulnerable areas are typically the first to "fall between the cracks." Most ELLs worldwide struggle to achieve age-appropriate literacy standards because school districts still refuse to fulfill their basic requirements.

Writeboard

A process writing e-tool, such as the Writeboard, is a web-based space shared or edited by individual authors in joint ventures. Although each document can be saved, a return to previous documents is also possible. This tool provides a space where ELLs can work together to produce written tasks. This allows the ELLs to feel comfortable sharing ideas, making mistakes in writing, and editing their classmates' work. It is simple to coordinate writing projects for like-level or multilevel students, following differential learning.

Chun (Erben et al., 2009), early research into the use of technology, highlights that hesitant students are often active participants in online writing projects. Since process writing e-tools are saving different versions of the same document, ELLs can edit and re-edit their work without worrying about losing their work. This feature makes users measure or self-evaluate their writing progress by reading back on previous copies of the same document. A key benefit this tool encourages is teamwork and peer-revision.

WIKIS

A wiki is a collaborative website that a lot of people can edit or work on. Ward Cunningham initially conceptualized this idea in 1994; he called it a wiki, which is a word meaning quickly in Hawaiian. The computer program enables users to access the original posts and to add or modify content. This collaborative writing was initially designed to encourage as many people to participate and make improvements, resulting in a webpage that could be continuously updated. It is the result of the involvement of the collective community. Participation in a wiki is a clear description of the proximal development zone (ZPD) in Vygotsky (as cited in Erben et al., 2009). Throughout a problem-solving situation, the participants are emotionally mediated by others. In this case, the problem would be elaborating one or more document(s) that will inform others about a particular topic. Vygotsky (born 1978) highlighted that the ZPD might not need to be a novice-expert partnership but a collaboration with peers at the same level who mediate one another. The use of a wiki by ELLs fits nicely within this concept because their writing community is formed as they work together, and the mediation process is enriched. Ultimately knowledge is shared and constructed collectively.

Wikis promote student-centered teaching in that students have control over what is being written and what remains on the wiki pages themselves. Indeed Richardson (2006) suggests that the less the teacher exerts control, the more successful the wiki project is. The benefit of wikis is their flexibility. Students can incorporate links to other websites or use pictures and other graphics to spruce up what they have written. This appeals to the digital generation, which is not used to seeing only words on a page. Garza and Hern (as cited in Erben et al., 2009) suggest that wikis make writing seem more of a process than a series of tweaked and twiddled static drafts. Finally, the wiki project collaboration negotiation necessarily helps the students to develop successful problem-solving skills. Most wikis have an alternative called "Discussion" or "Comments" to encourage this, through which students may discuss issues with each other, provide reasons for changes, and disagree with what someone else has written. Also, as stated above, most wikis have a "History" feature that displays what changes have been created, how often, and by whom when clicked. This is a handy diagnostic tool for teachers because it shows who needs help.

Though designed solely for ELLs, another collaborative activity is one in which ELLs create a grammar wiki in the content area. The teacher, for example, sets up a wiki for use as grammar in class. This can consist of one page only, or probably better, a series of pages, one for each topic. The teacher asks the ELLs to write down some grammatical construction (s)he uses that they are unfamiliar with during the lesson. The teacher and the ELLs sit down during a lesson and study and talk about the teacher's different grammatical constructions when speaking. In groups, the ELLs are asked to create a wiki entry that will serve as a reference resource for the entire class. As a group, the class can decide which elements to put into the grammar page, such as the grammar point form and use, usage examples, and so forth. In future lessons, ELLs or groups of students may be asked to add points to the grammar, and the whole class may be asked to edit and revise it. The teacher will use class grammar as the basis for pop quizzes, homework tasks, etc.

BLOGS

Blogs are weblogs or journals which are posted on a website where anyone can view them. They cannot be edited, unlike a wiki, unless the owner activates the "comment" feature inviting lecturers to reply. As a result, the site features both previous posts and new comments. Blogs were also known as online diaries, which emerged in the mid- 1990s. Blogger has features that allow users to post something to a blog with a phone call (Blogger Mobile) or an email (Mail to Blogger). You can also use your cell phone to call Blogger and leave a message. It is posted as an MP3 audio file to your blog. It does not even need an account to use. There are blog search engines, and there are several different blog types named for the way content is delivered, such as:

▪ vlog—comprising videos;

▪ linklog—including links;

▪ sketchblog—containing sketches;

▪ photoblog or photo logs (Flogs)—including photos

Now, look at the following activities to get a sense of how blogs can be used in the classroom to improve learning regarding ELL. Multiculturalism is a two-way street. In this educational use of blogs, we aim to show how ELLs can be immersed in American culture through communication with native speakers and immersing American students in the culture of the ELLs of the class through communication with their culture representatives. Students develop a greater understanding of their own culture as well as the culture of the other languages. The hope is they will value and respect both cultures through this activity. Collaborative learning online is getting popular. There are many websites and organizations in all parts of the world that help teachers, schools, and individual students find partners. Some examples are www.globalschoolnet.org/pr, www.epals.com/search/maps/id=homeegnmodule, and www.ptpi.org/programs/SchoolProgramApplicationAction.

WEBQUESTS

A WebQuest is a tool used to focus the learners' attention on specific content and promote their inquiry through the World Wide Web. "WebQuests encourage student motivation and authenticity, improve thinking skills, and facilitate cooperative learning" (Strickland and Nazzal, 2005). It is also included in project-based learning, which is a student-centered teaching method.

Based on the activity's organization, such tasks may be carried out separately or in small groups. Since the link to content information is provided by the activity creator, students can access the content they need to complete the activity task with no time spent looking. If necessary, the learners can be given links to content on the internet instead of searching for their sites. To allow ELLs to access content information in their first language, both the links and WebQuest instructions should be given in the learners' home language. Teachers in content areas are concerned continuously by providing content-area information to the ELLs at a suitable intellectual level and understandable in the ELL language. WebQuests enables the ELL to access the information in their home language; the next step is for them to be in contact with the same content in English, thus allowing them to start connecting languages by using content.

Webquests are predesigned tasks that will be used by learners to answer questions about a particular subject. Therefore, most are designed to be group activities that enhance interaction. Teachers should create WebQuests that fit their students in the developmental context. A technology, in this case, students can use it to manage student learning and learning strategies. Student research skills can be exercised by directed inquiry using a WebQuest.

▪ Title: A title is required to begin your WebQuest.

▪ Introduction: In the introduction, an explanation of what the students will learn is

included and how they will carry out the activity.

▪ Task: You will need to outline the result of completing the activity in this section. In terms of problem-solving, project design, or something they need to evaluate and then explain, you need to define their success. In short, you will explain clearly here how the learner will use the information to create something or change something. You will show the big picture of the project, in other words.

▪ Process: Within this section, you will explain the exact steps that the learners need to take to find the task's details. You may want to provide feedback here about how to show the information that they collect.

▪ Evaluation: The evaluation section will provide learners with feedback on how to complete the assigned task. It is essential to state clear goals and include an evaluation scale for the task. You must also state whether the task will be assessed individually or as a group or not.

▪ Conclusion: The conclusion explains what the students have learned from the successful completion of the work.

▪ Credits: In this section, you must list any electronic sites or books you cited in the WebQuest creation.

WebQuest enables students to use the twenty-first-century skills in which they will have to be successful in the future of the society in which they live. According to Miller and Veatch (Lee et al., 2020), because WebQuest focuses on real-world situations and offers students the ultimate goal, it takes a lot of critical thinking that is good for students to test.